You had me at "Wild Space."Star Wars is a lifelong love, and to me, being taken back to the summer of '77 is to be taken back to a time when I couldn't reach anything, I was oft at peril to shit myself having newly acquired the skill of using a toilet, and was under constant pressure to engage in the activity of afternoon naps against my will. Sippie cups lacked widgets, and car seats were barely in use, much less luxuriously upholstered command chairs, with cup holders. Heck, most places I went in '77 I was in the front seat lap of an unbuckled passenger. My parents tried lies about Santa in winter and some Bunny in the spring, I had to ask for anything I wanted. Sure, I may have had a childlike sense of wonder and amazement about things, but that stemmed from ignorance. (I'll be ranting a great deal about ignorance here.)
A lifelong love doesn't need to take you back it needs to take the relationship forward. Sure, once in a while she can throw some pigtails in the hair and you can have a nostalgic night. But the whole relationship can't and should never be built on nostalgia. To those whose love of Star Wars is principally one of nostalgia, you got special editions, the old girl even had a boob job, so'd they be as firm as when you first met, and you whined bitched and complained. Well, she's finally taking this relationship forward in a mature and SERIOUS matter, a no holds bar animated series for all ages, like Avatar: The Last Airbender.
"It's directly for kids!!! That's not STAR WARS!!!!" Really. Go. Track down a VHS copy of From Star Wars to Jedi, a behind the scenes documentary from WAYYY Back in 1985. Or almost any interview with Mark Hamill. It's always been a kids franchise. The nature of kids properties has changed greatly, but, this is Star Wars, for OUR KIDS. Not US entirely. My son said of this movie as we were leaving the theater; "I want to watch this movie every day!"
The professional film critics seem to almost overwhelmingly hate it, for few given motivations, all with one common stripe; it's destination of television. That's compounded by it also being, Star Wars, and they've hated all of those until usually 3-5 years later. But, Clone Wars has the audacity to do something not done, that I can recall, launch a TV show in the movie theaters, weeks before the broadcast debut. Its an impostor in Movieland, and the critics are predictably trying to drive it out of town, less they become inundated with becoming Television critics. I'm sure it's bad enough that they have blogs and the rest of the web to compete with.
The Internet voices, have found Clone Wars unenjoyable. I'm sorry that they're not mature enough in this relationship to move forward. We appreciate that you're fans of how you felt sitting in your pumpkin seat. But, it's clear that you didn't LOVE Star Wars as much as you said you did. So much of this BACKLASH, is from prequel hating people who have never played the RPG, read any of the comic books*, or read any of the novels. Most of the blogosphericaly inclined were apparently wanting this to be a nostalgia fest. A movie not moving the relationship forward.
Harry Knowles said "From the beginning notes of “As Time Goes By” and the Warner Shield – it felt wrong." The Studio logo.... you begin damnation of a movie with the studio logo? Oh SHIT!!! Yes, bonus points can be scored with doing something nifty with a logo...The Matrix, Waterworld. These movies score some bonus points with logo alterations. Gee.. anything else Harry? Something about sloppy shots... "undoing all the awesome work that Genndy had done" Watch that toon much? So a crane shot traveling over the action as we scale a cliff, is so much cleaner in 2D? This makes the Genndimated series look lame in many regards. First off, Anakin doesn't have a ridiculous fighter customized to look like his pod racer, he's not the whiny piece of work that we continually suffered with and the Jedi lack powers that violate reason, more than even some of the worst offenses in comics.
What else is there, there's so much, I've been reediting this for a week or so... Not that anyone cares. The Jedi council forums are the only refuge for people who care for the BEST MOVIE of the YEAR... I kid, Recount is that, and Wall-E...
Oh... So, the near consensus on the net has been that Ahsoka Tano is Freakin Hannah Rock Damn Star Montana. Well, what are some character attributes of Hannah? She's a lying, ego driven, self obsessed, treacherous, two faced, manipulative young woman. Even though many of these charges against the little overexposed rock star character are exhibited and corrected within an episode, she is a character capable of these things manufactured to appeal to the fame obsessed vanity of tweenage girls. All other charges aside, she needs to feel the approval of millions of people and if she doesn't her frail ego will collapse. If Hannah Montana were force inclined and lived in the Star Wars galaxy, she'd be a Sith lord. She's worse that Palpatine! As a parent, I HATE most of the kids they throw on the screen. I wind up reminding my kids constantly how HORRIBLE these wastes of humanity are. That kids aren't supposed to behave like that, and that they're all horrible role models. Maybe I've seen to many Disney factory kids on TV, they're all self obsessed monsters. But, Ahsoka was a character I didn't mind my children seeing.
In defense of Ziro the Hutt
The charges are, a homosexual, loudly adorned, Hutt that speaks basic (English to MANY of the websites...) First off. No Star Wars character speaks English. Not a one. They speak Basic. Basic, is the language that you watch Star Wars in. For me, it's English, for some it sounds like Spanish... It's alphabet is Aurebesh. We see it on monitors and displays... So, Ziro speaks Basic. We've never seen a Hutt on screen before a deep as possibly can be inside the core. We've seen them in the outer rim, where most residents speak Huttese. Now, with so FEW Hutts in this series, why do the residents of the Outer Rim, especially Tatooine, speak the Hutt language? Well, the Hutts run things out there. It's very wild west, and they... They're Gene Hackman in The Quick and the Dead. Wealthy in places where people will do anything for money, and immune to Jedi influence where Jedi are the closest hop to the law, Hutts have always had a prime position to run things out there. But, Coruscant is the wealthiest planet. There are to many people who can't be bought, and it's Jedi central. Ziro is trying to fit in by A) speaking Basic. WHEN IN ROME? and by... dressing the part. As for the flaming nature... Um... Hutts don't have girls and boys rooms to potty in, they have Hutt rooms, and Hutt parts. Hutts don't have to F-- themselves either, some actually choose to F-- other Hutts! So, Ziro, if ever sexually active with another Hutt, would be... well gay. So what? Captain Jack Harkness of torchwood would tap Ziro in a Corellian minute and Ziro would be begging for more! As far as ANY of this being "Unstarwarsy". Well, no one really bitched this storm up when Queen Jool first appeared in the Legacy comic series
Droid Slapstick.
There's a line in Armegeddon; "Have you even seen Star Wars?" Sit. Watch Episode IV. Droid slapstick has been with us since the beginning. Droids in this universe think in non-linear, irrational ways. That's why the oil bath will "feel" good to 3PO. R2 and 3PO call each other names. They arguue and bicker... and even Battle Droids would need these irrational, non-linear thought patterns to process the abstract concepts of vauge tactical commands. Besides, it's just classic Starwarsyness.
Well, the box office numbers reflect that so much of the buzz, when you talked to people who don't spend huge chunks of their time online, was the misgiving that this movie would be on TV anyway, that it was the first few episodes. I imagine LOST or 24 would have similar box office malaise if they ran their season premiers in a theater, with the understanding in the minds of the audience that it would be shown on television regardless.
So, congratulations to the critical masses who hated this movie! For all of the writing and love being claimed for Star Wars, most of you haven't picked up a book, comic, RPG... Anything that required the use of HANDS! This movie wasn't for you. Please, HATE Star Wars, you mindless DROIDS. We don't serve your kind here.
If you hated Clone Wars: I sentence you to this. Press play. It's the WORST THING EVER
*By the way, if you've never read a comic book, of anything in your adult life, you're wasting your life away. Go, buy Watchmen or Sandman, or Bone, The Walking Dead, and QUIT WASTING your life. READ. Then, go to a local planetarium. Watch a few episodes of The Universe on History Channel. Okay, now there's about 100,000,000,000 galaxies with about 500,000,000,000 planets each in them, and we're never getting to any of them any time soon. We can look at them and wonder. And Star Wars, while not "scientifically accurate" or probably anywhere close to realistic, is a wonderful way to let the mind play on the playground of just how big and fascinating of a universe we may well live in.
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